Secrets
by Rap541
Summary: What happens when you are a Cylon and no one wants to believe you?
1. Chapter 1

It was just like the commander, no the **admiral** to send one of his fresh faced lackeys to frak with him so soon after the battle. The last thing that Cottle wanted to do was pretend to care about a drug inventory. And the more he thought about it, the more that Lt. Gaeta set off warning bells. He glared darkly at the younger man as he opened the drug cabinet. " Frankly, we're running out of everything. Painkillers, tranquilizers, antibiotics… Go ahead and count them."

Gaeta nodded dutifully and began to count the bottles. " You keep everything together? Antibiotics and tranquilizers?" His tone suggested that he questioned the wisdom of that.

Cottle seriously considered punching the little bastard. "Everything is clearly labeled, Lieutenant."

Gaeta nodded again, still counting the many vials. " Taking the wrong pills or too many can kill a person," the younger man said softly, his eyes intent on the different bottles.

Cottle's eyes narrowed in sudden interest. He covered it by lighting a cigarette. " Too much of anything will kill you," he said conversationally. " But we don't have enough of anything to really worry about that. Except for this stuff." He tapped one of the larger jars. " Good stuff if you're sick, lets a congested patient rest and breath easily, but five or six of these with a little alcohol…." He dragged on the cigarette. " It kills pretty quick. That's why I keep it locked up."

" That's a good idea," Gaeta said agreeably, still not looking at the doctor. " I can finish this up myself. I know how busy you are, Doctor."

" That'll be fine. I've got better things to do than hand hold you." Cottle walked out of the room, hoping he wasn't right about what he was thinking. Only time would really tell, he thought as he peeked back in and spotted Gaeta fiddling around in the cabinet. He had pointed out a weak tranquilizer. If Gaeta did what he thought, then he was going to have to have a serious conversation with him about more appropriate ways to handle depression, but until then, he had more critical patients to deal with.

" Damn it."

Tigh looked up from the report he was reading. Gaeta muttering curse words was usually a bad sign. The last time that had happened, the ship had nearly blown up. Hopefully, Tigh thought, it wasn't going to be so bad this time. Things were finally looking up. That bitch Cain was dead and mostly unlamented. The fleet had just handed the Cylons a sound defeat. Whatever the problem was, it couldn't be that bad. Nothing was on fire, after all.

" Mr. Gaeta, what seems to be the problem?" he asked as he walked over to the console that the younger man was fiddling with.

Gaeta looked up, seeming more flustered and irritated than Tigh could recall. " I was just trying to fix this console, sir. It's not giving proper readouts."

Not a crisis at all, Tigh thought with relief. " You were off shift three hours ago, Lieutenant. It'll be there in the morning." It was just the spare com unit. Dualla didn't even use it. Possibly because it didn't work.

" I promised I would fix it," Gaeta said quietly as he continued to work. " I wanted to get everything done… before I finished my shift… and this was the last thing I had left. It wouldn't be right to leave it."

Tigh shook his head. It was like Gaeta to be conscientious, but there was a limit. " Go on, get out of here. It can wait until your next shift." It wasn't like Dualla was going to notice, one way or another. He hadn't missed how she was suddenly paying an awful lot of attention to Lee Adama. Billy was about to get his heart broken, and Tigh wondered if Gaeta had entertained hope. It would explain why he was trying to fix a broken piece of equipment that hadn't worked in months.

He wasn't often glad that he was married, but it beat being third, or possibly even lower, on some woman's list.

Gaeta nodded. He looked suddenly tired, as if the work shift had finally caught up with him. Possibly more, they had all been working killer hours. He started to walk away and then came back. " Sir…."

"Yes, what?" Tigh was starting to get annoyed.

"You wouldn't…. You wouldn't happen to know where I could find… some alcohol?" Gaeta seemed embarrassed.

Tigh was too surprised to get angry. Of course, he didn't really try to hide the fact that he occasionally imbibed. It wasn't a secret. It was just… surprising to have Gaeta of all people ask him where to find it. Poor kid, he thought suddenly, the chief was never going to be intimidated into giving up precious "solvent" to Gaeta, hardly the most threatening of the officer corps. " Here," he said pleasantly as he pulled out his flask. " Bring me the flask when you're done."

Gaeta smiled. " I'll make sure you get this back, sir."

It had been a long day. Running a fleet, even a fleet of just two battlestars, was harder than it looked. It wasn't helped by the fact that the late and rather unlamented Admiral Cain had not valued organization nearly as much as she had admired fighting spirit. The ship was a mess, the spic and span show was just that, a show. The flight decks were lovely, as was the Pegasus CIC but the lower decks… He was no longer shocked by how timid and frightened some of the impressed civilian crewmen looked. He had made sure that Colonel Fisk understood the new rules and he had transferred a few people over to make sure that things calmed down and that all of the people were being treated fairly. He had no intention of allowing the ship atmosphere of casual hostility to continue. It was simply not going to be a short process.

There was a knock at his door. "Enter," he said quickly, glancing at the clock on his desk. It was getting late. He had an early morning meeting with the president. He looked up and saw Lt. Gaeta enter his quarters. " Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?"

" It's time for the monthly personal sidearm inventory." Gaeta tapped his clipboard. " I need to see your sidearm, sir."

Adama tried to not let his irritation show. Gaeta was a good officer but if the younger man had a flaw, it was his tendency to not differentiate between important duties and things that didn't need to be pursued so zealously. Maintaining the ship watch, searching lines of computer code and repairing the life support systems was apparently on the same level of importance as making up the laundry schedule and visually inventorying sidearms, in Gaeta's ordered mind.

Then again, there were worse problems. He watched as Gaeta examined the gun, taking great care to make sure it was loaded and ready. Then the younger set the weapon down on the desk. " Everything looks fine, sir." Gaeta stepped back from the desk, and looked down at his clipboard.

He wants something, Adama realized. He wondered what it could be. It wasn't like there were many favors or requests that could be granted, but there a few privileges that he could still hand out. Gaeta had been doing his job and doing it well, without complaint. " Is there something else, Lieutenant?"

Gaeta hesitated. " There is, sir." He looked nervously at Adama. " May I sit down, sir?"

Adama nodded, suddenly alert. It wasn't just nervousness, Gaeta was sweating and pale and that was strange. " Go ahead." Even more oddly, Gaeta took a seat that was a good five feet away from the desk. " So what is it?" Adama asked gently. A transfer to the Pegasus was his best guess. Gaeta liked networked systems, and technical things, and a ship full of such things was probably hard to resist.

" This is awkward," Gaeta said hesitantly. He looked down at his feet. " I wrote a detailed report on what we're about to discuss. It's on my desk in my quarters with some other letters."

" And what are we discussing?" Adama said after a moment. He was tired and not in the mood to gently probe around whatever Gaeta was upset about.

Gaeta put his hands behind his back, clearly clenching the back of the chair. " I'm a Cylon, sir."

Adama felt his blood run cold. He grabbed for the gun and in seconds was aiming at Gaeta. Much to his surprise, Gaeta was still seated, calmly looking at him. Scratch that, Adama realized as he glared at the man, Gaeta was as pale as milk and breathing hard, obviously trying to not shake. That was odd for a Cylon. " It's not a very funny joke, son."

" I am a Cylon, sir. It's not a joke. The safest thing, the best thing you can for the fleet right now is pull the trigger." Gaeta looked down at his feet.

" Why are you telling me this?" Adama asked after a long moment. The gun was loaded, he realized that Gaeta had cleverly made sure that his sidearm would be out and ready. There was little danger as long as he held the gun on Gaeta. Cylons were fast but they couldn't outrun bullets. That gave him time to figure out if Gaeta was trying to commit suicide in a spectacularly bizarre fashion. " If you are a Cylon, why would you tell me? You understand what will happen."

Gaeta nodded. " I know. I don't think you would understand my motivation, but I am telling the truth. You have a window of time right now where you can eliminate me as a threat without a concern that I might reveal the fleet position. I suggest you take that opportunity, sir."

" I think," Adama said slowly, " that we're going to talk a few minutes before I do that, Mr. Gaeta." He wanted to shoot, that was the instinct he was fighting. Shooting would feel good, and he wasn't blind to how Admiral Cain had met her end at the hands of a Cylon just days earlier. As good as letting instinct take over would feel, he had a duty to the fleet. If Gaeta was truly a Cylon, it was possible that he… knew things. Important things.

And there was still the possibility that the man had simply lost his mind.

" Why don't we start," Adama said slowly, " with why you are sitting here in my office telling me that you are a Cylon." He didn't think he was being unreasonable.

" You're my commanding officer." Gaeta took a deep breath. " I could take care of eliminating myself but its unlikely that you would believe any note that I left. If I didn't tell you, there would always be doubt, and that's not something you can afford. By telling you, you'll analyze my remains and be sure, and that's one more model of Cylon that you can warn the public about."

" You want me to kill you?" It felt like a trick, a Cylon trick.

" Not especially. There's a small window of opportunity to eliminate the risk I pose." Gaeta suddenly seemed almost calm. His body relaxed.

He was crazy, Adama thought. " What risk is that?"

" I know the fleet's position. I didn't tell you before because you would have had me killed." Gaeta's words seemed to slur just a little, but enough that Adama noticed. " If you had killed me before…. I can ignore the orders they give me, but I don't think I could protect the fleet if I had been killed and downloaded back to the resurrection ship. But now, there's no risk to the fleet or the Galactica. I'll just die."

The problem was that it did make sense. If he really was a Cylon. " But **why**?" That was what Adama didn't understand. " Why does the fleet matter to you? You're a Cylon."

" I took an oath as an officer of the fleet to defend the colonies," Gaeta said slowly. It was clear now that he was slurring his words. " I don't want to be the reason that everyone I know dies. I like everyone. I have friends. I don't know why they want me to kill everyone I know."

Adama considered that for a moment. He really wasn't sure, that was the problem. It was consistent with what he knew about Cylons, as little as that was, but Gaeta was well aware of the research into the Cylon mentality. He could easily confabulate a plausible story if he wanted to have a mental breakdown. He watched Gaeta carefully. Something was wrong, that was obvious. Gaeta seemed to be falling asleep in the chair, which was a little odd considering the gravity of the situation. " Mr. Gaeta, is there something else you'd like to tell me?"

Gaeta closed his eyes. " I knew you'd hesitate, sir. So I took care of it." He slumped to the floor.

He could be faking, Adama thought. But a Cylon willing to talk was too important to let die on the floor. He grabbed the phone and called down to the sickbay. " I need Dr. Cottle in my office immediately. And send two marines as well." He didn't put the gun down. There was always a chance that Gaeta really was a Cylon.


	2. Chapter 2

" I can't say I'm surprised," Cottle said dryly as he looked over Gaeta's unconscious body in sick bay. He looked up at Adama. " I assume you didn't really have a pressing need to inventory the drug locker either?"

" What?" Adama shook his head. He hadn't yet explained to Cottle the circumstances that led to Gaeta being in his office. The doctor looked at him, cynical amusement on his face.

" He was inventorying the drug locker earlier today. He had some questions about the drugs. I made sure to direct him to the less lethal items available." Cottle shook his head. " I didn't think he'd try so soon. He hadn't even seemed depressed but then again, I hardly see him." He gestured to Gaeta's sleeping form. " He's going to wake up with a hell of a headache and then I'll give him the lecture on how suicide is not the answer." The doctor looked at him curiously. " Aside from the fact that he passed out in your office, is there a reason you're hanging around, Admiral? If you're worried, don't bother. He'll live."

" That's not the concern I have. Can we speak privately?" Adama looked at the two marines. " If he so much as moves, I want one of you to come and get me immediately."

Cottle's eyebrows raised in surprise but he said nothing until he had Adama in his small cramped office. " So," he said as he lit a cigarette, " I understand how a suicide attempt might be upsetting but I get the impression something else has you in my office."

" Unfortunately yes." Cottle was trustworthy. It was simply difficult to discuss openly. " Lt. Gaeta said some very disturbing things before he lost consciousness. Things that have to be taken seriously, even if there are other explanations."

Cottle took a seat at his desk. " People who are suicidal often try to cut ties. They think it's less painful for the living if they say or do things that make the people around them angry."

"He said that he was a Cylon." Adama said gruffly.

" I figured as much when you insisted on guards," Cottle said after a long pause. " You know that it is next to impossible to confirm whether someone is or isn't a Cylon from medical testing." He smiled slightly. " I assume you have some doubts as well since you didn't just put a bullet in Lt. Gaeta's head."

Adama nodded. The problem was exactly as Cottle had outlined. " There is a possibility that he is telling the truth, but there is also the possibility that he's having some sort of breakdown." He described what had taken place, leaving nothing out.

Cottle hesitated before he spoke. " You have a problem, Bill. If he is not actually a Cylon, then he is very ill and has been for some time. I'm not a shrink, but I do know a little about the subject. That is an extremely complex, detailed, and internally consistent fantasy."

" Meaning?"

" If he's not a Cylon, he's really crazy." Cottle breathed out some smoke. " He's not fit for duty. He's certainly a danger to himself. And frankly if it gets around that he's a Cylon, someone will eventually oblige him with a bullet in the head. If he really believes that he's a Cylon, then he's psychotic. We're not equipped to handle that, and in the best of situations, it's controlled not cured. On the other hand, if he's a Cylon…. That's an entirely different problem."

" What do you think?" Adama asked. He trusted Cottle. The man's opinion was one he respected.

Cottle took a long drag. " He's a Cylon. It's possible that he's having a psychotic break, and he certainly is bright enough to come up with something uniquely bizarre for a fantasy, but the delusion would not allow him to be highly functional for very long. His behavior, up until the last twenty four hours, has been as normal as mine. You would have seen changes in his behavior long before this. Now, that's an opinion. I would hope that you would have Dr. Baltar run the Cylon test on him."

" It will be done again. He did pass the first time." Adama stepped back towards the door. " Until that test is done, I don't want this possibility discussed publicly."

Cottle shrugged. " People are going to talk about the armed guards. And the hard restraints. That's not how I normally handle suicide attempts. I also assume you don't want him to have visitors. It'd be safer for everyone if you could find a plausible reason to insist he be placed in the brig." Cottle chuckled. " Technically, you could jail him for damaging colonial fleet property."

Adama almost smiled. That had been a joke back when he had been a young cadet, that getting hurt on duty was a punishable offense. Then again, there hadn't been so many suicides that hadn't resulted in a dead body that he couldn't get away with it. " That's not a bad idea, Doctor."

He tried to hold his breath. If he took a breath, that meant he was still alive and that was the last thing that he wanted. He was fairly certain that Cylons didn't go to the Elysium Fields. If he was waking up, then one of two things had happened. The best option as far as he was concerned was that he had simply frakked up the number of pills, and Admiral Adama had hesitated to kill him. It was worrisome, but not insurmountable. The admiral would soon involve the president, and the president would not hesitate. It was harder on him, he didn't relish the walk to the airlock with friends looking on, but it was necessary.

The worse option was that he was about to wake up somewhere else. Where exactly he didn't know. That, along with so many other things, had never been adequately explained to him. Maybe Caprica, maybe the Cylon homeworld, or some basestar. He had never gotten a straight answer, just that he should be happy to know that he was immortal in comparison to the humans that surrounded him.

It didn't make him happy. The last six months had been miserable. Standing watch, following orders, and trying desperately to save the last remnants of humanity while a voice in his head told him to do terrible things….

At first he had thought that he had gone mad. It wasn't normal to hear voices. It especially wasn't normal to hear voices claiming to be God, the only God. The Cylon God. The voices said that he wasn't crazy, that he was one of the chosen ones, that he had a special purpose in the plan. He just didn't believe that his purpose in life was to kill everyone he knew. That was why he hoped he was about to open his eyes and see an armed marine from the Galactica pointing a gun at him. If he was on Caprica, he figured the Cylons had ways of getting the information they wanted. That scared him a lot more than the idea that he was a Cylon.

Felix Gaeta opened his eyes. The ceiling was dark grey, metallic and patterned like the deck on the Galactica. He let out the breath he was holding. He raised his head. He was lying on a cot, and there were metal bars in front of him. The brig, he thought with relief. He was in the brig of the Galactica. That was better than the alternative, although he still dreaded the execution that was coming. It was for the best, he understood that, but he would have preferred the oblivion of a drug overdose. He started to move but was stopped by heavy metal chains. He was shackled at the wrists and ankles.

That was for the best.

He could just see the guard moving to the phone as he sat up. Good, he thought. He didn't want it to drag on. The decision had been well thought out. He knew, he assumed it was instinctive, that he would wake up among Cylons if he died. God had made that clear and he did believe it on that point. But he could also sense that the Cylon upload capability had been compromised. He could die, without being reborn. The Cylons wouldn't be able to use his knowledge.

He realized that he was right about the guard calling. The marine stared at him, but not in a hostile manner. That was also good. The admiral may not have told everyone. He doubted it could be kept a secret but there would be a panic when it was revealed. He was the one who calculated almost all of the fleet jumps. People had a right to be scared.

The admiral walked into the brig, followed closely by President Roslin. Adama was calm but he could see the anger in the older man's eyes. Roslin, in contrast, was much easier to read. It relieved him. President Roslin was going to have him killed and it was coming sooner than later. He had always thought that she was smart.

"You may leave," Adama said to the marine. He waited until the marine had closed the door before he spoke again. " We have a problem, Lt. Gaeta."

" I think I told you how to solve that problem, sir." He didn't want to make the man angry, but at the same time, he had to do what was right for everyone. He didn't like it, but he had made his choice long ago. He doubted that he would have gotten a warm welcome among the Cylons any way. The voice that said it was God wasn't happy with him.

" You won't be executed until we're sure that you're not suffering from some sort of mental illness," Adama said after a moment. " Dr. Baltar is also retesting your blood. I doubt we're under such time constraints that you need to be killed within the next five hours. While we're waiting on the test results, I have a few more questions."

" I'm not mentally ill, sir." He had expected that. When people heard voices in their head claiming to be God and telling them to kill, certain assumptions were made.

"We're not concerned about that," Roslin said after a moment. " I'm curious to know how long you've known you were a Cylon." She smiled slightly, a chilling cold visage.

He had expected that question. " I knew at Ragnor Anchorage. When I was calculating the jump away from the station, a voice kept telling me that my real mission was to plot the fleet into a trap, that I would survive but it was my duty to eliminate the risk." He hesitated. " I though then that maybe I was having some sort of stress reaction to the war, but it just got worse as we kept jumping. I kept saying no, asking why…." He hesitated again. It had been a difficult time. " The voice wouldn't explain why I had to kill everyone I knew, everyone that was left, just that I would understand and be allowed to know more once it was done. So I didn't do it." It was a relief to say it out loud.

" I don't explain my orders to you, Lt. Gaeta." Adama seemed faintly amused.

" You've never ordered me to murder thousands of people, sir. It does make a difference." Gaeta waited patiently. He was sure that there were more questions.

" How many other Cylons are there in the fleet?" Roslin asked. Her tone was cold.

" I honestly don't know." He knew they wouldn't accept that, but it was the only answer he had. " They don't trust me. I haven't done what they want. I was supposed to destroy the Galactica by jumping it into an ambush and then the fleet would have been mopped up by the basestars that were tailing us. They want information but I never get any from them because I won't trust them. So I don't give them information."

Roslin and Adama looked at each other. Finally Roslin asked, " Why are you doing this? I know you understand the consequences. If that test of Dr. Baltar's indicates that you're a Cylon, you will be killed. Why did you tell us?"

He knew she knew the answer. " I won't be the reason that everyone dies. Without the resurrection ship, there's a good chance that I will just die. If I just die, then the knowledge I have concerning the fleet dies with me. I am not anxious to die, Madame President, but if I do die right now, I won't have the death of everyone in the fleet on my conscience. I don't understand why the Cylon detection test didn't find me out before, but I am sure that it will this time. Don't hesitate." He wasn't really worried about her, he could see in her eyes that he was a dead man already. It was Admiral Adama who had already flinched at the task.

Roslin smiled at him. " I assure you, Lt. Gaeta. If that test is positive, you'll get your wish. There won't be any hesitation."


	3. Chapter 3

" Gauis, stop."

Her voice made him look up from his work. "I'm very busy right now, if you don't mind." In fact, he was extremely busy. Admiral Adama and President Roslin had made yet another emergency demand of him. " In case you missed it, I am very busy right now proving that Lt. Gaeta has had a mental breakdown." He looked down at the test he was running. While it was true that Gaeta had been tested at about the same time that he had turned off the indicator for determining actual Cylons, he figured he had met enough Cylons to know that Gaeta was simply and sadly in the throes of a serious mental illness.

A shame really. There were hardly any decent conversationalists on the Galactica. There was only so much stimulation to be had chatting with the pilots. Arrogant boasting and bragging about kills was only mildly interesting when he personally was also drunk. Gaeta, in comparison, could talk on several technical areas, and could usually even discuss politics and philosophy. Plus, from a straightforward practical standpoint, if Gaeta was insane or a Cylon, it meant that he would be stuck with all of the technical grunt work that Gaeta did for him.

Six looked at him with wry amusement all over her face. " Gauis, don't you understand? This is part of God's plan for you."

" What? What part of God's plan is this?" Baltar took of his glasses and rubbed his head. " Why does God even care that Lt. Gaeta is psychotic? Sometimes I think God just enjoys bedeviling me."

"Don't blaspheme, Gauis, it's not attractive." Six's voice took on a warning note. " And Lt. Gaeta is not psychotic as your… more accurate testing methodology will prove." She laughed. " It's ironic really. He's more loyal to the human race than you, and he's not even human."

Baltar felt his irritation suddenly turn to rage. " Are you telling me that he's a Cylon? That you've known he was a Cylon? That we've all been entrusting our lives to him and he's on your side?"

Six slapped his face. Hard. " Gauis, are you listening to me at all?" She grabbed him in that way that she had, hard and fast, and slammed him into the wall. " For a brilliant man, you don't listen very well." She leaned in very close, until she was inches from his face. " Lt. Gaeta is a Cylon, but he has rejected the command of God."

" Is that even possible?" Baltar ignored the bigger issue, that she had just confirmed that Gaeta was a Cylon, and focused on the second part. " If he's a Cylon, isn't he… programmed to believe in God?" He didn't pretend to understand Cylon psychology, but he was pretty certain they couldn't refuse orders.

She ran her hands down his body. " The sleeper agents had to be granted a certain amount of free will and independent decision making or else they would never be able to pass in human society. They all believe, up until the moment of activation, that they are human. Some are even inserted as very young children, like your original Sharon Valerii. I suspect that if you dig deeply into Felix Gaeta's background, you'll find a childless couple that was pathetically grateful to accept a child of unknown origins and pass it off as their own. They might have even lied to him about being his natural parents."

He brushed her hands aside, suddenly intrigued by what she was suggesting. " Why would he admit he was a Cylon? He was passing. If… if he wanted to pass himself off as human, he certainly was doing a fine job. There was no reason to expose himself."

Six backed away, looking both amused and quizzical. " The concern, Gauis, is that he still considers himself, in his mind, a human being, and not a Cylon. God wants him to understand his true nature." Six looked at him intently. " You have been given a very special mission, Gauis. You need to bring a fallen one back to God"

He almost laughed. Almost. " Why would I want to convince him that he was a Cylon? And if the test is positive, he's going to die as soon as Roslin knows." Roslin took a hard line towards Cylons. If Gaeta had just been planning a suicide, he was going to get his wish. The president wasn't going to take any chances.

" The test is going to be positive, Gauis. Deep down, you know that." She fondled his crotch. " Your job is to first make sure that no one ever doubts the test. You must not allow the authorities to execute Lt. Gaeta. This will involve lying, Gauis."

He batted her hands away, intrigued suddenly by the problem it presented. " Falsifying the test is child's play. The only other person who even understands the test is Gaeta. Which," he suddenly laughed, " makes this all the more amusing. However, there is more to this than just lying. As I understand the current crisis, he's actively suicidal."

Six shook her head. " There's an inhibition. He might try but it will always be unsuccessful if he doesn't involve the help of others. Unfortunately for you, he is inventive."

Baltar nodded to that. " I'm surprised he's alive. And quite frankly, there's a very good possibility that the president will order his execution regardless of the test results." Roslin, much more so than Adama, took a hard line on such things. She was often bizarrely liberal, letting convicted prisoners run their own ship was one, but when it came to Cylons, the president generally was not open minded. " She'll want him dead just to be careful. He's had too much access to the high command." And it occurred to him that was precisely why Six, and presumably God, didn't want Gaeta tossed out an airlock.

And why Gaeta had tried so hard to orchestrate his own death. Baltar eyed Six carefully. Was she just in his head? Or a force acting through him? He didn't know. " So I tell the admiral and the president he's as human as I am. Then what? They aren't going to just release him back to his job. You do understand that the other option in this farce is that he's crazy, correct? That's going to remove him from the chain of command. After this little admission, even if I do convince everyone that he's just crazy, someone is likely to take it seriously and kill him out of revenge."

Six glared at him. " God is concerned about his soul, Gauis. He is one of God's children and he needs to understand that he is one of us, not one of you."

" You're not worried at all about why he's not in line with the kill all humans program?" Baltar asked after a moment.

" His model has always been prone to independent thought." Six returned to unbuttoning his clothes.

" Isn't that a flaw?" He couldn't help but be interested. She rarely discussed the Cylon models, except to mock Sharon Valerii.

" There's always a need for independent thought." Six spoke softly as she fondled him. " And in many ways, God is quite pleased with Lt. Gaeta. However," and her voice took on an ominous note, " God will be very displeased with you if Lt. Gaeta dies so far from one of our resurrection vessels. You don't want to displease God, Gauis."

No, Baltar thought to himself, that just wouldn't do. He merely questioned how much influence he could bring to the table to save the life of a Cylon that wanted to die.


	4. Chapter 4

" And you're absolutely certain, Dr. Baltar?" Roslin looked at the test results with both relief and concern. It was a relief that the Galactica's tactical officer wasn't a Cylon, but she didn't envy the problem Bill Adama now faced.

Baltar nodded fervently. " The test doesn't lie. Lt. Gaeta is as human as everyone in this room." He emphatically tapped the paper print out. " Obviously there is something wrong with him, but he is not a Cylon." He looked around the table, obviously expecting more of a reaction than what he was getting. " This is **good** news, people."

Roslin sometimes wished that slapping his face wasn't technically out of line. He was right, in the sense that it good that a Cylon hadn't been plotting their course for the last six months, but Baltar had the empathic ability of a child at times. " Dr. Baltar, while it is good news that Lt. Gaeta is not a Cylon, we are still left with a very serious problem. Namely, that Lt. Gaeta is mentally disturbed." And disturbed in a way that made it very unsafe to let him wander about.

" It is a problem, Madame President," Adama intoned. He looked down at the file of test results that Baltar had brought and then passed them to Dr. Cottle. " However, it's now just my problem and not the civilian government's. Dr. Baltar, I thank you for clearing this up."

Roslin knew a dismissal when she heard one, and it was clear that Baltar knew it too. He was quick to gather his papers. " If there's anything I can do to help," the scientist said nervously as he opened the door, " please do let me know. Lt. Gaeta has been a fine assistant."

" Of course, Dr. Baltar," Adama said easily.

Roslin also began to gather her paperwork. She had plenty of things to do, and was glad that one of those things was not watching an execution, but there was still a concern that had to be dealt with. " I expect to be updated on this situation. I understand that severe mental illness is usually grounds for a medical discharge, but I do not want a mentally ill man put into the civilian population of the fleet without some structure in place. Or some warning." Because all it would take was one conversation and some civilian would be up on murder charges. And she really didn't feel like explaining that to the press.

Adama waited until Roslin had left before turning his attention to the remaining member of the conference. " Well, Doctor?" Now what?"

For a change, Cottle wasn't smoking. He gestured aimlessly to the file that he had brought. " You remember what I said before. That hasn't changed, it's just been confirmed. The question becomes where do you plan to put him. The president isn't a doctor but she is right on one point. You can't safely discharge him into the civilian population. They'll kill him, which is exactly what he wants. At the same time, I personally don't like the idea of letting him continue to plot our jump coordinates." He tapped his file. " I did a thorough medical exam. There's nothing organic going on. No brain tumor, no sudden hormonal changes, no drug problem. There's no physical reason for him to be hearing voices from God telling him that he's a Cylon. That means he's crazy. There's no magic cure for crazy." He looked at Adama intently. " On the other hand, we do let Dr. Baltar walk around without a keeper or medication and I have to say, he's showing far more signs of severe mental illness than Lt. Gaeta."

" So what is the plan?" Adama didn't pretend to understand Cottle's job but he sensed that the doctor was uneasy about the situation. So was he. Mental breakdowns happened, he had seen it more than a few times in his lengthy career, but there were signs. They took more risks, they drank more… on any given day he could pick out who was struggling. There had been no warning at all with Gaeta. Ironically, Felix Gaeta being a Cylon made more sense than Gaeta having a breakdown.

Cottle shrugged. " There's a slight possibility that this is a brief reactive psychosis, and not the first obvious sign that Gaeta is a raging schizophrenic."

" And what does that mean? In laymen's terms?"

Cottle pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. " There's a very small chance that Felix has had a major but temporary walk away from sanity. He's young, under a lot of stress…Let's face it, you didn't think he was going to suddenly start getting into fights with deckhands or screwing anything that moves. That's not how a man like him has a nervous breakdown. Maybe this is his way of relieving stress."

" By killing himself with pills and trying to get us to kill him?" Stranger things had happened, Bill Adama knew that, but it seemed a bit excessive.

"Transferring any guilt he might feel over desperately needing time off but not being able to ask? Hey, I don't know, but maybe. I'd prefer that to the notion that he's so frakking nuts that we're going to need to keep him under lock down. Let me keep him in sick bay for a few days. With the President not currently dying of cancer, I have a little bit more time available to counsel people and fix broken legs, whatever." Cottle waited patiently. "If he's not a Cylon, then the big issue is that he might try to hurt himself. If you take what he said at face value, he only wants to hurt himself. Sickbay has plenty of people of keep an eye on him, I can try out the all the crazy people meds, when the mood hits I can shrink his head…." He paused, and exhaled smoke contemplatively. " Of course, I won't be able to stop the random idiot with a gun coming in to kill the admitted Cylon. That little tidbit is already going around the ship and you can bet that Dr. Baltar won't keep his mouth shut. And let's face it, you didn't exactly punish the last person to plug a Cylon."

Adama eyed him carefully. " You say that like you disapprove, Major."

" I did disapprove." Cottle tapped the ash from his cigarette onto the conference table. " You set a precedent. Cylons are things, not people. That means that people expect to get away with it when they gun someone down in the hallway. And that means you need to say something to the crew before I find someone hunting Cylons in sickbay." Cottle glared at him. " Because I know how to fire a sidearm too, Bill. And if the test says he's human, then I have to go along with that, just like you do. And that means he's a patient and I'm not going to have my patients gunned down like dogs when they are mentally ill. So that's a word of warning, Admiral. I hope you pass it on." Cottle stood up. " I'm not frakking around on this. If he's not a Cylon then he's crazy and if he's crazy then he's sick. If he's sick, then shooting him is murder. Murder in cold blood of someone who can not and most likely will not defend himself, and I hope that means that anyone who tries will get a frak lot more than a month in the brig. If they don't take a bullet trying."

" I get the point. Just don't get trigger happy."

It was obvious that he wasn't being allowed visitors. He didn't mind, not really. He had tried to talk to his friends before he had made his confession, but most of them had been too involved with the day-to-day drudgery to really listen to him. He understood that. He had left notes for his close friends, knowing that it was unlikely that he would survive long enough to worry about friends visiting him in the brig.

It was also obvious that the admiral was not telling everyone what he had said. He knew what had happened to Sharon, to the other Sharon. People had constantly harassed her, the guards, while hardly as bad as the Pegasus, hadn't been kind. Admiral Adama was a smart man, and a merciful man in a lot of ways. Gaeta knew, without even needing to question it, that the admiral wouldn't enjoy killing him, and certainly wouldn't allow him to be mistreated as badly as the Pegasus Cylon had been. He didn't want to die, not really, but he just couldn't trust that there wouldn't be some command that he couldn't resist. He didn't know, and that was the problem.

He didn't know anything, and that was the bigger problem. He had been successful in saying no, and the voice had pressed very hard at times. There had been many times that the pressure had been overwhelming. It had just been a screw up that he had lost the fleet over Kobol. He had been exhausted and frantic because it had never occurred to him that there could be another Cylon on the ship. But when the fleet was split and he was running interference for Tigh, it had been tempting. Tempting to just throw up his hands and scream frak it at the drunk bastard and then shoot him. Worse that he could almost hear cheering in his head whenever he thought that way. Something was going to happen, and that would trigger his doing something awful. Knowing what Sharon was, he had realized that she had been fighting temptation. Had she been under more pressure? He didn't know, but he understood how easily that it could be him, the next time.

She hadn't struggled all that much, really. She had to have been the one that blew up the water tanks. It was even possible that she had helped Shellie Godfrey escape. He had read the reports, had helped Dr. Baltar prepare them. Sharon had blackouts, where she did terrible things, before truly accepting her nature. It had worried him a great deal but he was certain he had not blacked out. With both the water tanks and the disappearance, he had carefully retraced his steps just to make sure he hadn't been responsible. Neither Sharon had ever hinted that they knew him, or about him. That seemed odd to him but God had dismissed it when he asked about it.

God dismissed almost everything he asked about. It was upsetting, and concerning. Of course, he supposed he was technically the one in the wrong, to question God on anything. Then again, God had intentionally arranged it for him to be raised among the enemy, by skeptics of all religion who had taken him to religious ceremonies to show him how to pick out inconsistencies. So he supposed that a just god would have more patience than what he had gotten.

He was positive his parents, his **adoptive** parents were dead. He was certain that if they were alive, it would have been used against him in some way. He had a feeling God wasn't one to fool with. Sharon proved that point when she gunned down the commander. A part of him was glad they were dead, so that they wouldn't be suffering as prisoners of the Cylons, and so they wouldn't have to know that the child they had raised as their own was the enemy.

The door to the brig opened. He was surprised to see Dr. Cottle of all people enter the room. Even more surprised to see the doctor dismiss the marine guard. He had helped write the protocols on handling Cylons. There was always supposed to be a guard.

Cottle casually lit up a cigarette. " You know, you are one giant pain in the ass, Lt. Gaeta."

" Excuse me?" He didn't get up. It was awkward, with the shackles, and while he knew that Cottle was a caring man, the attitude was often hard to take.

Cottle glared at him. " The test results are in. You've officially won the basket case of the year award and now you're my problem."

" What?" Gaeta felt sick to his stomach. " What are you talking about?"

" You're not a Cylon." Cottle smiled slightly. " That means you've passed. Twice. You're a human being. You're probably psychotic. I'm hopeful that drugs and therapy will help, and that you've just had a temporary vacation from sanity. Otherwise you're going to spend a lot of time bouncing off padded walls."

" I am **not** human. The test is wrong. You have to do it again." It was impossible, Gaeta thought, there was no way that he was human.

" Felix… Do you think that we don't understand? You're under unbearable stress. If you screw up and forget to carry the one, everyone dies. That's a lot to deal with, especially when you aren't a pilot and getting constant validation." Cottle pulled a bottle of pills out of his pocket. " I've got some medication. You're going to take one of these pills every few hours. We're going to try to talk about your issues and see if you can't be convinced to shut up about how you think you're a Cylon."

" I **am** a Cylon." Gaeta considered the possibilities. It was unlikely but possible…. " Dr. Baltar lied. To protect me. He thinks he owes me a favor. Because of how I was able to exonerate him when he was accused. He's lying."

Cottle chuckled. " Sure. Dr. Baltar, out of the kindness of his heart, falsified a test just that he could prove an admitted Cylon was human for no other reason than that he felt that he owed a debt to someone. Have you actually met Dr. Baltar? Been around him for longer than five minutes? Hell, he's crazier than you, he's just not dumb enough to have tried to kill himself by confessing to be a Cylon."

The problem was that he had a point. It was really a stretch to think that Gauis Baltar would do anything that put himself at risk. Still, unlikely as it was, it was the only explanation. " I am not mentally ill. I am a Cylon." He decided to go for broke. He pulled the shackles that bound him, until the metal twisted and broke. He let the chains fall to the floor. " Is it so unreasonable that I don't want to get every single person left that I care about killed?"

Cottle looked down at the chains and then at him. He shook another pill out of the bottle and held the two pills through the bars. " I'm willing to discuss the possibility after you're nicely drugged. I personally am not interested in dying."


	5. Chapter 5

The problem, Cottle thought darkly as he looked at his notes, was that there was nothing wrong with Felix Gaeta. While it was humanly possible for a psychotic man to bend metal, it caused damage. There was no way that a man of Gaeta's build could accomplish it without tearing tendons and breaking bone. A psychotic could do it because they simply didn't feel it… but not only had there been no discomfort on Gaeta's part, he had continued to carry on a logical if somewhat angry conversation.

Psychotics didn't do that. Psychotics didn't calmly take the pills either, but Gaeta had. Psychotics generally calmed down a little after taking anti-psychotic meds. A little. Normal people on anti-psychotic meds generally looked like they were napping with their eyes open.

It was a half hour after Gaeta had taken the pills, and Cottle was sure that he hadn't seen the man blink in ten minutes. On the one hand, it meant that it was safe to unlock the cell. On the other, it meant that Gaeta was not reacting the way he was supposed to. Someone crazy enough to call himself a Cylon, try to kill himself and then bend thick metal shackles and chains wasn't supposed to zone out so quickly. There was a slight possibility that he was faking, but Cottle didn't think that was the case.

And that was interesting.

" Lt. Gaeta, I'm opening the cell door now." He unlocked the door and stepped into the cell. Just as he suspected, Gaeta didn't react. Cottle pulled over one of the chairs and took a seat. " How do you feel? Hearing any voices?"

Gaeta blinked. " No. I told… I told you. God's voice stopped when the resurrection ship blew up. I'm not in signal range. I think this medication is too strong." He rubbed his face with his hand. " I feel numb."

" We'll fiddle with the dosage. Right now it's better to be a little overmedicated than under medicated." Cottle leaned back in the chair. " We need to set a few ground rules on how we're going to handle this."

" I am not crazy." Gaeta said it quietly but forcefully.

" You tried to kill yourself with pills and alcohol. That alone indicates you aren't the king of rational behavior." Cottle let himself enjoy the nicotine rush from the cigarette for a moment. " You also quite cleverly used the Admiral's notorious tendency to blast away at Cylons as a back up plan. So I know you planned this. You're insisting that you're a Cylon even after you've been thoroughly tested. I can't help but consider the possibility that you're insisting on this… fantasy because you understand how inflammatory it is, that one of your well meaning, ignorant shipmates will blow your head off thinking that you're their ticket to hero status."

" I am a Cylon. Dr. Baltar is lying to protect me. I broke those shackles with my bare hands. I don't know what I can do to prove this to you." Gaeta rubbed his fingers, a repetitive motion that Cottle recognized. The medication had side effects, and the numb sensation and repetitive motion meant that Gaeta probably wouldn't be so willing to take it again, but that was a problem for later.

" Maybe you can't prove it, because you aren't a Cylon." He wasn't a psychiatrist, and it had been a long time since the medical school rotation. " Lt. Gaeta, you've been relieved of duty for medical reasons. You're confined to sick bay until I decide you're no longer actively suicidal or until you're medically discharged. If you are medically discharged, it isn't likely to have pleasant consequences for you."

Gaeta looked at him intently. " What does that mean?"

" Triage sucks. That's what it means." Cottle inhaled deeply. " There is one doctor for forty nine thousand people in this fleet. That means I don't have unlimited time to figure out what's wrong with you. It's not safe to let you walk around right now. You certainly are intent on hurting yourself, you might be violent towards others in order to achieve your goal, and we can't let someone who is violently disturbed run around free."

" I'm not violently disturbed." Gaeta said after a moment of thought.

" Shut up." Cottle waited to see if he would react. He didn't, except to look down at his feet. Good, Cottle thought, maybe something will sink in. " You need to understand what your future looks like right now. If I don't clear you for duty, it will be because I consider you too dangerous to yourself and others. Do you like how you feel right now? Because you're currently enjoying a lower dosage than what I give the other violent psychotics and the pills are mandatory in the Astral Queen's lockdown. It's not a pleasant place, Felix. You get a cell that's smaller than this and you don't get to leave. I can't afford to waste hours of every day trying to get you to not be crazy. If you don't get better, you'll get thrown away. We don't have the resources to save someone who doesn't want to be saved."

Gaeta was silent for a long moment. "Then give me what I want. It doesn't have to be so drawn out. It isn't like I want you to waste time and resources. I don't deserve it."

" Then do it right." Cottle pulled out his service pistol. It occurred to him that Gaeta was still making good sense despite the drugs. Deep down, he didn't consider it a waste of time to treat the mentally ill, but he wasn't lying about the options Gaeta was facing. There weren't that many truly disturbed people in the fleet, and they didn't live in pleasant circumstances. He wasn't lying on that point. There just wasn't enough time in the day to give the poor shattered minds more than medical maintenance.

Gaeta, however, didn't seem shattered. Nothing about his demeanor was odd. Cottle had asked around and had not been surprised to hear that no one had noticed any strange behavior or any signs of depression. The more he talked to Gaeta, the more he didn't see any indication that he was talking to someone who was lost in a fantasy.

Which agreed with his theory, and his experiment. He put the gun in Gaeta's hands. " Go ahead. I won't stop you. I'll just say I was foolishly wearing a gun and thought you were sedated. You took the gun from me and shot yourself. Problem solved." He waited a moment, noting that beads of perspiration suddenly dotted Gaeta's forehead." Go on. I'm not going to stop you. The gun is loaded."

Gaeta hefted the pistol. His hands shook. Then he set the gun down. " I'm not allowed. There's a rule. I broke all of the other rules, but I can't… I can't break this one."

Cottle took the gun back. " I have two theories, Lt. Gaeta. The first is that you're not truly suicidal, just frakked up from job stress. That's the pleasant theory."

"And what is the unpleasant theory?" Gaeta almost whispered it. His hands shook.

Cottle took a deep drag, savoring it. " Sharon couldn't kill herself either. I read the reports on the Pegasus Cylon. She certainly had more than enough reason to kill herself but didn't. And you're not an idiot. You could have made yourself a nice lethal drug cocktail. Instead you asked me about drugs, and carefully orchestrated a plan that should have ended with you dead by Admiral Adama's hand. You aren't allowed. That theory, if it is correct, leaves us with a very big problem."

" That I am a Cylon," Gaeta said.

" That too," Cottle said amiably. " But here's our bigger problem, Lt. Gaeta. Why would Dr. Baltar lie about it?"

" I have no idea."

" Neither do I. And I am not entirely convinced you're a Cylon. But clearly we need to investigate this a little bit harder."


	6. Chapter 6

He realized only after an hour that he was running his fingernails up and down his shirt. Gaeta put his hand down on the table. Dr. Cottle was adamant about the medication. He wasn't so in love with it. He couldn't focus on anything, he couldn't seem to feel anything. Except when he spent hours rubbing his fingernails on his shirt. Or rolling a felt tip back and forth on his desk. He felt off balance, and tired, and completely incapable of thinking of much beyond keeping his eyes open.

The medication made him crazy, in other words. In theory, he was supposed to be filling out Dr. Cottle's reports for the Admiral, helping out with the organization in sick bay. In reality, he was pretty certain that he had spent the last few hours rolling a pen across the desk, rubbing his hands on his shirt, and folding the reports into clever animal shapes.

He assumed he had been the one to create the little herd of paper cows, anyway. And that was no way to fill out reports, but he suspected it was busy work to begin with. He rested his head on his hands.

" Hey, are you sleeping, sir?" He looked up with a start. Petty Officer Anastasia Dualla was staring at him, her expression both concerned and amused.

He tried to shake it off. He couldn't. Finally he said, "What?"

She took a seat in the chair that was beside the desk he was sitting at, and put her hands on top of his. " Dr. Cottle said you could have visitors, sir. How are you feeling?" Her expression was loaded with concern.

It made him angry, to be perfectly honest. He liked Dee. She was a friend. He was putting himself through hell, had been putting himself through hell for months, in order to protect his friends. And the thanks he got? They thought he was crazy. He was willing to sacrifice himself and that had led to this. " I feel awful. No one believes me, and I am on some sort of anti-psychotic medication that makes everything feel numb. That's how I am feeling."

" Admiral Adama let us all see the test results, sir." Dualla managed to look both concerned and motherly. " He didn't want anyone to try and hurt you. I know you think you're a Cylon, but you've been tested twice now. And I can't believe that the man that fought so hard to save the fleet from the Cylons is one."

She wasn't going to get it, he realized suddenly. Humans were sentimental, and that was their downfall. The admiral had been sentimental about killing him, and certainly was being sentimental over the new Sharon. Dualla was being sentimental over him. She couldn't conceive that the same man who worked along side her often had to mentally bite down against orders that would kill her.

And he was too disorientated to try and argue with her. " So what is everyone else saying?"

"Seriously? That you've been under a lot of pressure. That they're worried about you. That they're glad that you aren't a Cylon and they hope you don't keep trying to hurt yourself." She squeezed his hand. " A lot of people care about you and would miss you, Felix. And I'm one of them."

He wondered if she would care quite so much if she knew he could leap across the desk and break her neck in an instant.

Cottle looked at Baltar with surprise. " You want to what?"

The dark haired scientist twitched. " I want to borrow Lt. Gaeta."

" Dr. Baltar," Cottle didn't even know where to begin. " Lt. Gaeta is not in any condition to assist you with… whatever it is that you do. He's medicated and under observation." And completely useless while on medication, but he assumed that would be obvious once Baltar saw the paper animal menagerie.

It was odd for Baltar to come nosing around anyway. With a day to think about it, Cottle still hadn't come up with a plausible reason for Baltar to falsify Gaeta's test. It wasn't logical. He didn't consider himself to be on top of the ship gossip, but he had the impression that Gaeta had been a barely tolerated imposition on the mighty Dr. Baltar. He wanted to believe that Baltar had lied, because he despised the man and because it was more palatable to him than having to diagnose a young officer with incurable mental illness.

He wasn't being a good doctor if he ignored the obvious. The obvious answer, even with Baltar's shifty behavior and Gaeta's ability to bend steel, was that Gaeta was schizophrenic and delusional. Then again, he thought as he lit a cigarette, it was damn odd of Baltar to even visit Gaeta, let alone want to take the man to his lab full of potentially dangerous objects. If Baltar had falsified the test, then he was taking a big risk wanting to be alone with a Cylon that was pretty mad at him. Baltar was not a brave man, not in the slightest. It would be interesting to know what he was up to.

" All right, but there's conditions. Number one, he wears a life signs monitor. If he takes it off or does anything that significantly alters his vital signs, an alarm goes off. If the alarm goes off, I call in the marines. Number two, you only get him for an hour today. If he isn't a mess when you bring him back, I will consider longer time periods. Number three, you don't leave him alone. He's on medication to control the suicidal tendencies, but it's not fool proof." He paused. " Still think you need him for chores?"

Baltar crossed his arms. " Did it ever occur to you, Dr. Cottle, that I thought it would help him? To get him out of this… madhouse you call a sickbay just for a little while? That he might like a change of scenery from the brig and the sickbay?" Baltar's voice took on an aggrieved note. " You know, I may seem a little cold at times, but I genuinely like the lieutenant. It would be an utter shame if he was not able to recover from… from this lapse."

It fairly oozed sincerity. He almost bought it. Almost. The problem was that Baltar was almost too anxious to get a yes for his little field trip for Gaeta. Getting Gaeta out of sickbay to help with some experiment was an excuse to be alone with Gaeta. Baltar wanted to be alone with Gaeta for some reason.

And that was just a little too odd for his taste. The Cylon theory suddenly looked much more realistic. He was suddenly intensely curious to know what Baltar was up to. " All right, but all of my conditions stand."

" That's perfectly reasonable," Baltar said, his tone suggesting it was anything but.

Cottle walked back to his office, where he had deposited Gaeta earlier in the day. It was open, and there was a window and he had taken out anything that could be considered sharp. He didn't think Gaeta was suicidal, and he was veering back to the Cylon theory, but it paid to be careful.

Like with the anti-psychotic meds, which were clearly not helping. He was going to switch Felix over to some anti-anxiety drugs he had once the anti-psychotics wore off. He couldn't **not** medicate Gaeta, not two days after a suicide attempt and admission of severe delusions, but the anti-psychotics were too powerful. And if Gaeta was a Cylon, it stood to reason that he might be a little anxious.

The lieutenant was filling out forms at the desk. That was a step up from earlier when he had been playing some sort of pen rolling game. That was a plus. Gaeta would be reasonably alert for the field trip. " Get up. I've arranged a play date for you with the other ship crazy."

"What?" Gaeta stood up. " A play date?"

" With Dr. Baltar. He thinks you need more stimulating surroundings." He quickly explained the terms of the visit. " So don't do anything crazy. We'll have a little therapy session when he brings you back."


End file.
